"It's time that we began"

[ateolf]

The Bill Callahan show was really excellent. We got there early (like as about the first ones there) to make sure Mary Beth could get a decent spot where she could see. The show was at the Minglewood Lounge. They changed where the stage is, moved it over to the adjacent wall and it's kind of weird there. I hadn't been since before covid! We were sitting around waiting for it to start and Zach and Magen were the first people I know to show up. It's funny 'cuz though I hadn't talked to Zach in forever, I'd just happened to be messaging him earlier in the day as I'd reached out after buying that Vince Guaraldi album since he always says it's his favorite jazz album (or if not the Christmas one, one of the Peanuts ones in general). Anyway, so we talked a good bit. The opener was Edsel Axle and I wasn't familiar but she was really great. Instrumental, exploratory guitar stuff...a big folk/country based but going out into experimental territory. Lots of loops. It was good. I picked up a t-shirt after the show. Then Bill Callahan played and he and his band were excellent. We saw him back in 2008 and that was good but this show was just top notch. A funny thing is that Mary Beth has been into The Trap Set podcast and that very afternoon we were listening to the Adrienne Davies interview and she was going on about what a great drummer Jim White is. Well, Bill's band starts up and as soon as he starts playing, I'm immediately like, ooh this drummer is good (not knowing who the drummer is or anything). It wasn't anything showy or flashy, but just immediately the way he played had a lot of subtlety and it just grabbed me under the surface with how good it is. A few songs into it, he announces all the band members and lo and behold, it's Jim White. Then it's like, yeah that makes a lot of sense. But there was also another guitarist and a saxophone player and they were all good. There was a cover of "So Long, Marianne" and that ruled. They closed with a song talking about the curfew the venue has and how they want to play longer. Happy to have gone to it!